I have a surface 8 pro too and the easiest way to set it up was to use Aurora (or bluefin if you prefer Gnome). All the drivers were preloaded and if you want to use luks with the tpm it is a breeze to setup.
You can achieve the same with other distros, I’ve done it with Arch and Nixos too but if you don’t have a solid Linux background I strongly suggest Aurora or Bluefin for an easy and solid installation.
I have two Yale Zwave locks that are at least 11 years old and still kicking. The key factor to this is the non reliance on the cloud.
Zigbee, Zwave, Esphome and other non-cloud will always work longer than any cloud based solution that is at risk of being shutdown, use a outdated or no longer available app, become a subscription, etc.
I agree with you that they should be required by law to open their code and unlock the devices but I doubt this will happen any time soon.